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S&s/Summit Books

Great Black Hope

$28.99 USD
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"If Tom Wolfe, Jay McInerney, and Margo Jefferson somehow collaborated, this might have been the delightful result." --Boris Kachka, The Atlantic

"Incandescent...full of sentences I want to cut out and glue to my forehead." --Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

"A masterpiece...At once fresh and original while delighting the reader with hints of Franzen, McInerny, Baldwin. This novel--a whodunit, a coming-of-age, a New York novel--heralds the arrival of a rarefied talent." --Elin Hilderbrand, bestselling author of Swan Song

A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend's mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.

An arrest for cocaine possession on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not.

It's just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, the daughter of a famous soul singer, and he's still reeling from the tabloid spectacle--as well as lingering questions around how well he really knew his closest friend. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, only to buckle under the weight of expectations from his family of doctors and lawyers and their history in America. But when Smith returns to New York, it's not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life--drawn back into the city's underworld, where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.

Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta's Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. Great Black Hope is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.

Book Details

ISBN: 

9781668077436

EAN: 

9781668077436

Binding: 

Hardcover

Pages: 

320

Authors: 

Rob Franklin

Publisher: 

S&s/Summit Books

Published Date: 2025-10-06

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Customer Reviews

Based on 20 reviews
40%
(8)
5%
(1)
25%
(5)
15%
(3)
15%
(3)
C
Chloe
Just OK

I heard great things about this book, and it was OK, but... The cultures portrayed in the book just were unrelatable to me. I couldn't really connect with the characters. I liked some of the prose. Some descriptions were memorable enough I stopped to reread them. But overall, it missed the mark for me. Not a horrible book, but I was expecting something more.

F
Famoudou II
Excellent Writing, Good Story

Great story for a 76 year old white, straight man to read. This opened my eyes to an existence so different from mine. Populated with drug usage and gay black men and women, it shows the struggle of trying to make it in nyc when one is privileged( educated) and yet in a lifestyle which is problematic. It’s the story of an upward bound young black man who is arrested for drug possession and looses his roommate to mysterious circumstances at the same time. He grieves for her. Reminiscent of Bright Lights Big City, a huge novel in late 80s. I enjoyed it immensely.As to style, his is beautiful and we’ll hear more from him I hope.

P
Philip Hubbard
Not much hope here!

Very thin, weak story line. Author attempts to prop the story up by making the protagonist black and linking his limited brush with the criminal justice system to a wider black American experience.

i
isabellav
Shallow and boring

This book had real promise but felt empty and aimless. The main character lacks any substance and feels like a caricature - if he was a queer white male living a privileged life in Manhattan in his 20s we would have no tolerance for it - the fact that he is black and queer (and privileged and slightly devoid of personality) makes him a hair more interesting but honestly I’m not sure why this would make a story interesting. I also feel like the book is pretentious -!a lot of well crafted words but not much substance. Very disappointing and a general waste of time.

M
Mr cool

This book is an incredible read, and I highly recommend it.

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